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Patrick Reed

Patrick Reed

Computer simulations for drought-prone areas reveal that when urban water planners combine three approaches of buying water -- permanent rights, options and leases -- the city avoids surplus water and high costs, and reduces shortages, according to civil engineers. "Just like with stock portfolios, if you buy diverse stocks, you diversify your risk," said Patrick Reed, associate professor of civil engineering, Penn State. "Right now, cities don't necessarily diversify their risk through the ways in which they buy water."

Patrick Reed, professor of civil and environmental engineering, has been selected for an Outstanding Achievement Award by the Environmental and Water Resources Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The award recognizes "exceptional performance of an important task or series of activities over a short period of time that advances the work of the water resources planning and management profession."

Patrick Reed, associate professor of civil engineering, has been awarded a large resource allocation (LRAC) grant on the largest open science supercomputer in the world. "It's a new scale of computing with 62,000 processors," Reed explained. "My award of 1.79 million computing hours represents the most selective level of resource allocations." Reed's project, "TeraGrid-Enabled Hydrologic Systems Monitoring, Prediction and Management Under Uncertainty," will make use of the Texas Advanced Computing Center's Ranger Supercomputer and 65 terabytes of storage space at the San Diego Supercomputing Center.